"KAZSTAT Project: Project to Strengthen the National Statistical System" under the Loan Agreement between the Republic of Kazakhstan and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, ratified by the Law of December 27, 2011 No. 520.

The main goal of the Project is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the national statistical system of Kazakhstan in order to provide the necessary, timely and reliable data in accordance with international methodologies and best practices.

The project included six main components and 32 sub-components in various areas of official statistics, covering different government agencies.

• Component А

  Improving the institutional environment and functioning of the statistical system

• Component B

  Improving information and communication systems and physical infrastructure

• Component C

  Development of human resources

• Component D

  Improving the statistical infrastructure, standards and methodologies

• Component E

  Improving work with users and respondents

• Component F

  Development of methodology and practice in specific areas of statistics

The total amount of the Project was 22.9 million US dollars (3360 million tenge), of which 20 million US dollars (2938 million tenge) was a loan from the World Bank and 2.9 million US dollars (422 million tenge) - co-financing of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

The partner was the Consortium headed by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany - Destatis, and also included the statistical offices of South Korea, Slovakia, Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland.

The project was completed on April 30, 2017 by the final meeting of the parties, where the representatives of the World Bank expressed gratitude for the fruitful cooperation within the twinning partnership and announced the possibility of further long-term cooperation. In particular, an agreement was reached with Destatis on the development of foreign trade statistics (extrastat) and mutual trade statistics (intrstat) through an annual “mirror” comparison of data on foreign trade statistics.

As a result of the Project implementation, the following main indicators were achieved:

• more than 80 methodologies have been adopted, thereby almost completely revising the entire methodological basis of statistics, taking into account international experience; more than 2,000 specialists of statistical bodies, subordinate organizations and interested state bodies were trained; the system of statistical tools has been improved, more than 80% of the existing statistical forms have been revised, and the reporting burden on national statistical forms has been reduced by 20%;
• in accordance with the practice of functioning of "pretest" laboratories in Germany, South Korea and Norway, a room for preliminary testing of statistical forms (questionnaires) was created. The introduction of such experience will improve the quality of official statistics, which in turn increases the confidence of a wide range of users in official statistics in Kazakhstan and improves feedback from respondents; in 2015, the Information Service began to work to receive calls from users and respondents in order to establish close contacts and improve the quality of their service;
• In 2017, in order to improve the quality of statistical data collection, work was carried out to introduce a computerized method of individual surveys (CMIS) and a telephone survey (CMTI). The purpose of CMIS is to automate the collection of primary data using tablet devices for household surveys on living standards and price recording using tablet devices. The purpose of the CMTI is to introduce the collection of primary data on agricultural statistics in peasant or farm households by telephone survey of respondents located in remote areas. This method will ensure complete coverage of respondents, reduce the time for receiving reports from respondents, and reduce the time for data entry into the software package. a Master Plan for the Development of the National Statistical System of the Republic of Kazakhstan for 2017-2025 was developed.

According to the representatives of the World Bank, KAZSTAT is one of the most successful and demonstrative Projects in the portfolio of the World Bank, both in Kazakhstan and in the Central Asian region.